Splenectomy in Patients with Visceral Leishmaniasis Resistant to Conventional Therapy and Secondary Prophylaxis: A Retrospective Cohort.

ABSTRACT: Some patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL), or kala-azar, suffer relapses and low quality of life despite adequate drug therapy, especially those co-infected with HIV. Occasionally, physicians indicate splenectomy, but the benefit of the procedure needs to be analyzed systematically. Therefore, a retrospective open cohort study was conducted in Teresina, Brazil. Inpatients from a reference hospital with relapsing VL who had a rescue splenectomy between 2012 and 2019 after the nationally recommended drug therapy failed were studied. The procedure's risks and benefits were assessed in a limited-resource setting. The primary outcomes were surgical complications, complete blood count, CD4+ cell count, hospitalizations, survival time, and medical complications preceding death. Thirteen adul

SUBMITTER: Reinaldo LGC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9393438 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature